Study rips school funding

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published 8:00 pm, Wednesday, June 1, 2005

According to a Connecticut Education Adequacy Cost Study released Wednesday in Hartford, 91 of 166 school districts in the state do not have enough money to meet the modest performance levels required in 2007-08 under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The report said 145 districts did not meet what was called "targeted adequacy," or an ideal funding level.
The report calls on state officials to add at least $481 million to municipal education aid and eventually chip in $2 billion more a year to best meet long-term student needs.
The school finance consulting firm Augenblick, Palaich and Associates compiled the report for the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, a group of municipalities, local boards of education, statewide education associations and related advocacy organizations.
Forty-four superintendents, principals, teachers and other educators across the state participated in the study.
They specified precise resources needed for varying school and district conditions, including class size, teacher-pupil ratios, universal preschool and full-day kindergarten, after-school and summer school programs, and intervention strategies and "best practices" aimed at raising student performance.
"I think this lays out a foundation for revamping the ECS (state Education Cost Sharing) formula for better meeting the student outcomes we are looking for," Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said Wednesday. "This is a starting point for what we need. The funding is in line with similar studies in New York. Adequate funding must come from the state, not local taxpayers."
Boughton called the estimates for Danbury's needs conservative.
"We know that many students are not counted in the free and reduced-cost lunch numbers because parents need to have Social Security numbers," he said. "This is a critical challenge that we face as we try to provide resources so that our students meet federal standards." Parents who are illegal immigrants do not have Social Security numbers.
"At this point, we'll be talking about next steps," Boughton said. "We will propose a redesign of the Education Cost Sharing grant and recommend a redistribution of taxes. We would consider litigation as the next step."
The report set an estimated annual cost of $7.7 billion to provide adequate schooling so 95 percent of all Connecticut students would meet state goals on the CMT and CAPT reading and math tests.
That would mean an annual investment by the state of $3.7 billion to $5.9 billion, compared with $1.4 billion the state now contributes to public schools.
David Larson, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, said it should be easy for the state to find the $481 million to meet minimum adequacy levels.
For one thing, the federal government owes the state $365 million - 40 percent of special education costs the federal government promised to cover in 1974.
A second money source could be to free the state ECS grant from the annual spending cap on government spending. That could provide another $200 million for education.
A third source would come from the state properly funding another program, the excess cost grant, which is underfunded by $25 million, Larson said. It helps pay tuition for students enrolled in special education programs outside their own districts.
"This money is not coming to towns and cities but the needs of the children are still there and the requirements of the state and federal governments are still there," Larson said.
At the same time, communities around the state are voting down school budgets.
"This has been going on for a couple of decades and finally it's straining the pocketbooks of the local communities," Larson said. "We hope local legislators will work with us. However, we are working with the Yale Law School Clinic. They are putting together a court case. The next step is to go to court."
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who attended the press conference in Hartford Wednesday, called the results significant.
"This study is a very powerful statement for the need for reform and it is an indictment of our present system in failing to meet the standards of adequacy and fairness," Blumenthal said.
Blumenthal said he would use the document in the state's lawsuit against the federal government for failing to fund the requirements of No Child Left Behind.
Danbury associate superintendent William Glass called the coalition's effort one "driven by frustration."
"We have ample funding to provide a mediocre education in which teacher training is non-existent, there is no new technology and higher class sizes," Glass said. "If the community wants the quality of education they are used to or want what they received, it is the public's responsibility to adequately fund it."
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The APA study, together with CCJEF's overview and town-by-town figures, are posted at www.ccjef.org.